Joanna Lumley has brought together a host of stars from stage and screen for a new fundraising venture to help Dumfries’ Moat Brae.
Patron of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust, the actress and TV presenter played a key role in raising awareness of the £9million fundraising campaign which helped save and transform the building into Scotland’s Centre for Children’s Literacy through its JM Barrie connections.
She officially open it last year.
Now, she has gathered the likes of Kit Harington, Alex Jennings, Alex Kingston, Helen McCrory, Jennifer Saunders, Juliet Stevenson, David Walliams (below) and Zoe Wanamaker, to record a new audio edition of J.M. Barrie’s timeless classic, Peter Pan.
The proceeds will go to Moat Brae and London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital – which was gifted the rights to Peter Pan by JM Barrie in 1929.
Abridged by Martin Jarvis, who also narrates, and introduced by Michael Morpurgo, the unique edition will be published on Thursday, November 19.
A former pupil of Dumfries Academy, Barrie said that he spent the “happiest days” of his life playing imaginary pirate games in the “enchanted land” at Moat Brae, where his friends lived, and it inspired Peter Pan.
Joanna said: “He haunts us all: Peter Pan has never grown up and has never let us forget him.
“His shadow found in a drawer by Tinker Bell trails round the corners of our eyes. As I now know, like a grown-up Wendy, that most of our lives are lived in our minds, this strange, thrilling, charming and unsettling work beckons children and adults alike into the world of make-believe, without which our lives would be intolerable. A host of stars has gathered to read the story aloud; their gift to the charity is a gift to us all. The Peter Pan Moat Brae House fires our imagination and draws us into the world of Neverland.”
Originally written as a play, the much-loved story of the boy who could fly and his pirate adventures in Neverland with the Lost Boys and the Darling children, was first published as a novel, Peter & Wendy, in 1911.
The book has gone on to sell over 85 million copies in 29 different languages, as well as being made into 13 films.
●An audio extract of Chapter 1 is available for free use at https://soundcloud.com/penguin-books/peter-pan-read-by-joanna-lumley/s-vdY14bYTDIt
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